


First Winter's Grasp

by chillydown



Category: Howl no Ugoku Shiro | Howl's Moving Castle
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-17 23:31:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16983897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chillydown/pseuds/chillydown
Summary: Howl and Calcifer have been together for around a year. It's their first Christmas together...and Calcifer has absolutely no idea what to do about the holiday.





	First Winter's Grasp

**Author's Note:**

  * For [asuralucier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/asuralucier/gifts).



The more time Calcifer spent with Howl, the more he realized what a lonely kid Howl must be. After all, he wasn’t what most people would call a ‘normal kid.’ Normal kids didn’t give up their heart to a falling star. And normal kids weren’t the former apprentice of the Grand Wizard Suliman. Normal kids didn’t spend all their time focused on their magic. Or did they? Admittedly, Calcifer didn’t know much about normal kids. He’s a falling star turned fire demon, alright, stuff like ‘the mind of a teenage boy’ was way out of his grasp. But he saw other kids every now and then, when they came to Howl for help. Both children of the upper class and slightly ratty street kids looked at Howl with an expression of awe mixed with fear.

That wasn’t good. Sure, Howl was a weird kid. To the best he could tell, normal kids didn’t focus on magic or focus on their looks like Howl did. But he had been wrapped around Howl’s heart for a little bit less than a year now and Calcifer had slowly started to come to the realization that Howl was his weird kid. And so, as an all powerful fire demon (he wasn’t) with a ton of power at his disposal (he could have had more) and a weird ward to look after (it was mutual looking after), Calcifer started to pay attention, listening into conversations and watching people, to try and figure out how to help Howl become less of a weird kid and more of the wizard he should be.

Unless all wizards started off as weird kids. Calcifer’s not so sure (but it would make sense.)

In his listening and watching, Calcifer discovered something odd: it was almost Christmas. He then discovered something odder: he had no idea what Christmas was. As far as Calcifer could tell, Christmas was a mishmash of things involving plants, stars, more plants, some birds, cold things, and finally plants. It took a bit of study and a lot more eavesdropping, but Calcifer finally figured out one of the things about Christmas: gifts. People came in, asking for potions or remedies to give to their loved ones. They asked for charms to protect someone else’s crops from harm, or keep their boat safe, or things like that. Stuff for other people, not themselves. Maybe that’s what Christmas was.

And it was in his listening and eavesdropping that Calcifer discovered one noticeable thing: Howl probably wouldn’t be getting much for Christmas. As far as Calcifer could tell, Howl didn’t have much in the way of family. So, Calcifer decided, it had to be him. He broached the question one unseasonably warm day, while Howl was supposedly studying.

“Hey,” Calcifer started, as Howl scowled down at a wordy spellbook of some sort. The kid could probably use the distraction anyway. At his voice, Howl turned to look at Calcifer, who was sitting inside the fireplace. “What d’you want for Christmas?”

It was such an odd question that Howl couldn’t help but stare. “I beg your pardon?”

“What do you want for Christmas?” Calcifer insisted. “If you could have anything in the world, what would it be?”

“Anything?” Howl frowned, eyes glimmering with excitement as he thought. Calcifer had a feeling he knew what was going through the kid’s mind: a new waistcoat, some fancy leather shoes, something like that which would fit someone just coming into their looks. He wasn’t expecting the actual answer. “I would like some snow,” Howl admitted. “Nothing too big, not a blizzard or anything, just enough snow for sledding and things like that. There was always a good snow or two where I grew up and I haven’t seen one in a while. Besides, I want to wear my winter coat.”

It took Calcifer by surprise. But on second thought, that made sense. It was a nice winter coat, something in a dark sapphire blue that Calcifer had a feeling Howl bought because it was expensive and made him look a bit more imposing than a lanky teenager just growing into his size actually was. And none of the places the doors led to really got snow, not like some of the mountainous regions did. Course, there’s a big problem with that whole snow thing.

“You know I’m a fire demon, right kid? Snow isn’t exactly my specialty.” Now steam, Calcifer knew he could do steam if needed. Oh he could do steam _really_ well, maybe this Christmas could involve steam. But snow? Even if he tried, he worried it would end up as rain. “What else does Christmas have?”

Howl frowned again. Though this frown was different. There was a hint of something behind the eyes, something that Calcifer couldn’t place. If he had to guess? It was excitement, the thrill of figuring out what he wants and of possibly being able to get it. “Christmas has food,” Howl explained. “There’s always good food: roast beef, turkey, things like that.”

Suddenly, the birds made sense. Calcifer nodded as Howl continued talking. But as he did so, some of that excitement in his eyes was definitely slipping into his voice. “Christmas also has presents. You give presents to the people you care about. On Christmas Day, you open the presents.”

“Gotcha. So what you’re saying is that I should give you a present.”

“Ideally,” Howl said, with a small, self-possessed little shrug. He certainly seemed to like the idea of presents. But Calcifer was the one to come up with the problem first.

“Just one problem. I’m stuck with you. It’s not like I can go out to the store and buy you a present, not like this. And the secret thing? It’s a bit hard with our circumstances.” They were close by necessity: the boy who gave his heart to a fallen star naturally wouldn’t let said star out of his sight for too long. Only a foolish man would lose his heart like that.

“You’re a smart little demon,” Howl teased, giving Calcifer a wry grin. “I suspect you’ll think of something.”

I’d better, Calcifer thought to himself. Cause this is the happiest he’d seen Howl in ages: he wanted to keep that feeling burning as long as he could.

\---

When Howl woke up, a few weeks later on the morning of Christmas Day, the room was cold. He could see his breath and feel the chill in his toes. It was the sort of cold where he knew he could trace shapes in the frost on the windows. Which was odd, because he was inside. Getting to his feet, Howl slipped on his slippers and pulled his silk dressing gown around him: it wasn’t useful for the cold, but it looked wonderful on him and Howl liked the way the color contrasted with his hair. His feet quickly padded out of the room, as he went to go find Calcifer and see just exactly what was happening…

...only to be greeted by snow. A small little cloud hung in the air And there, barely a flicker, hanging onto the burnt out remains of a log and looking damn tired was Calcifer.

“Did you do this?” Howl asked, not even bothering to hide the impressed tone and hint of awe in his voice. He walked over to a small stack of badly chopped logs for the hearth, picked one up, and set it down in front of Calcifer. Almost instantly, the demon moved on top of the new log as the flames spread out to swallow it whole.

“Told ya I wasn’t the best at snow,” Calcifer remarked, obviously tired and obviously a bit exhausted. “It’s not much, but it’s there.”

And Howl looked up at the small little snow cloud, snow falling from there and settling in a light dusting around the room. Howl didn’t even think of how the snow was probably ruining the notes or books left in a stack on the table, nor how it inevitably was going to be the death knell of the plant that Howl and tried (and failed) to keep alive. The only thing he could think of at the moment was how beautiful this room was...and now Calcifer must have tried his hardest and use up so much time, energy, and power to create this.

“Thank you,” Howl simply said, wide smile on his face, as he sat down next to Calcifer. “It’s absolutely lovely.”

“You can’t go sledding inside,” Calcifer reminded Howl, with a little self-deprecating tone in his voice.

“I know.”

“And it’s not enough to build a snowman or anything.”

“I know.”

“But you still think it’s lovely?”

“I do,” Howl said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I think it’s the loveliest snow that I’ve ever seen.”

There was a little pause. Howl knew that fire demons couldn’t blush, but Calcifer’s flames were growing a little redder, as if he was actually blushing. “Yeah,” he said, after a pause. “It is pretty good, if I do say so myself.”

And so, demon and wizard simply sat together and watched, taking in the snow as it continued to fall and blanked the living room in a pure, pristine coat of white.


End file.
